Poll: Fic size indicator preferences

[trascendenza]

I have a problem, I really do. Is there anyone else in the world who thinks about this stuff as much as I do? Probably not.

Anyway. Basically, this a poll to find out what method of fic size labeling people prefer, and why. A few of these questions are totally repeats of the Absurdly Detailed Fanfiction Header Information Poll (which, ohmygod

Comments

[nevadafighter]

I don't use any of these methods at all - in fact, it wasn't until I started trying to actively post stories on LJ (around last summer, heh) that I realized some people include this information. I always post my stories in their complete form to my website, and state how many chapters are in the story. That's the closest I come to categorizing the length of my stories, and that's all I ever look for when trying to determine the length of a story. (In all honesty, the only thing I really look for is whether or not a story is complete. I only read WIPs if I already know the author 1] can write worth a hill of beans and 2] that s/he'll ACTUALLY return to the story at hand OR 3] I'm so desperate for fic in said genre that I'll read whatever and deal with the emo drama of incompleteness later

[trascendenza]

I've thought a lot about the novels with no headers vs. internet fic postings with humongous headers thing, and the main conclusion I've come to is that when someone is shopping in a bookstore, they're looking for a book. Whereas specifically on LJ, people can and *do* group together a lot of disparate journals/feeds/comms/digests onto their friendspage (I pity the poor souls that haven't yet figured out filtering), and it's sort of become this competition for space. Everything is so fast-paced on LJ--once it's been pushed off people's friendspages, it tends to be forgotten. I know in my case that I became much more selective with my reading, not out of desire, but necessity--headers do some of the pre-sorting work for me, which is nice (but don't even get me started on headers that have too much information, oh God, how I hate them). And when it comes to posting in comms (especially ones that have high traffic), I think it's mainly a matter of sorting through all the different authors and trying to figure out what sounds the most

[nevadafighter]

I think a lot of my opinions probably stem from the fact that I don't post or read by LJ fic standards. I tend to hang out on fansites rather than LJ, where the only size indication is the number of chapters, so I approach LJ with the same attitude. When I *am* on LJ, I participate in some of the tiniest fandoms here so there never is the problem of competition.

[trascendenza]

I think most of my opinions stem from the fact that 95% of my experiences with fandom have been on LJ. And the same with my experience with RPGs--I haven't tried out a single RPG on LJ because I find the whole idea strange, since I'm so used to having them through e-mail or on Yahoo! Groups.

Being so accustomed to LJ makes me frustrated with fansites. Especially the ones that have white text on a black background. I always want to hit "?style=mine" and then get irritated when I can't. *g* I feel so spoiled. And I think, in a way, the catering culture that springs up around readership on LJ does spoil readers--since I have so many writers on my flist I've been able to become a lot pickier with my reading than I initially was. Anyway, I just started rambling again, so probably best for me to quit while I'm ahead. I have to start teaching my brain that answering comments before bed=bad. :P

[nevadafighter]

Ohhhhhhhhhh. I was an active fangirl before the internet was even available to the general public, so LJ is very... "special" is the only word that comes to mind, haha. I got online before LJ existed and was around for the Great Yahoo Greyout when Yahoo bought out Geocities and put some really hilarious copyright infringing crap in their TOS. Shades of SixApart, I tell you. And everyone's webpage was some horrible tye-dye mess with neon green Comic Sans in 25px. :: headdesk :: Photoshop was also a fairly "new" thing back then, because why in the hell would an average computer user want the industry standard image editing tool amirite

[trascendenza]

Special, LOL. Yes, I think that's the closest term to appropriate.

God, this crap just cycles, doesn't it? Shades of SixApart indeed.

Heh. I find round robins to be really strange. I got so addicted to PBeMs that I had trouble imagining how else people could RP. I also had a vendetta against anything that wasn't freeform, so D&D always confused the hell out of me--I could never even get beyond the basic system for rolling the dice before my brain was complaining and asking me why I was trying to force it do math in what was supposed to be my fun time. *g*

What's the big trend out there?Ugh, yeah, I HATE THAT. That sometimes freezes my muse, too. And, God, I still look back at the story I wrote when I was so desperately in need of positive comments that I actively catered in some of the chapters (i.e. inserting unnecessary sex or whatnot) and I want to strike it out of existence forever. But it's a good reminder. I have such a weird relationship with feedback/comments, blah, but at least I'm not like that anymore. I think